Page 86 - Biblical Backgrounds student textbook

Section 12: Pre-Common Era Greek backgrounds to the Bible

12.1 Connect

You probably have or remember one or two people who greatly influenced your life. Their
direct or indirect engagements with you have come to leave a lifelong impact on your life.
Now, try to imagine that on a large scale; think of a person whose exploits greatly influenced
the course of world civilization.

This lesson will cover the Greek era as ushered in by Alexander the Great (356–323 B.C). Starting his
major military campaign at only twenty years of age, Alexander conquered the Persian empire, in effect,
extending his rule from Greece to the Indus valley, including North Africa. As he conquered the lands,
Alexander introduced or at least paved the way for a culture that would heavily shape the politics,
education, religion, and other civilizations of the world of his time and beyond.
Let us find out how these numerous civilizations inform the Biblical backgrounds of this era and
subsequent ones.

12.2 Objectives.

1. The student should be able to identify how Greek era is significantly important to the story of
the Bible.

2. The student should be able to describe the story and welfare of the Jews during the Greek era.

3. The student should be able describe key people, places, and events that make up backgrounds to
some Biblical narratives.

4. The student should be able to identify key civilizations of the Greek era and how their influence on
Christianity.

12.3 Location and History

The story of Alexander the Great begins in his birthplace of Pella, 24 miles northwest of
Thessalonica and the official capital of Macedonia. The ancestry of Macedonia can trace as far
back as around 2000 BCE There are different narratives concerning the origins and early
developments of Macedonia. However, there is wide agreement that along the way, it
became a consolidated “kingdom” of tribes under a monarch. This consolidation made it one
of the “Greek City-states” among them Sparta, Athens, and Thebes.

It is hard to describe the exact size of Macedonia because its boundaries varied over the centuries and
because the exact boundaries during much of the country’s history are unknown. The kingdom was,

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